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MP3 playback for Prometheus

I know that this is a bit off topic, but Andru, what do you use for playing audio? I'm wondering since I can't find a true cross-platform library capable of playing .mp3 files for the Prometheus_Audio unit. I got sdl_mixer working, but it uses around 46mb of ram top play a 3 minute .ogg file, and refuse to play an mp3 through a channel and inists it must be via the bgmusic (which isnt much use as I want support for pllaying multiple files at once...)

Sorry for the off topic post, but I just felt this was the fastest way to ask.

cheers,
code_glitch

ps. If any admins feel this is out of place, please say so and I will move this post to a separate thread.

I once tried to change the world. But they wouldn't give me the source code. Damned evil cunning.

OpenAL and ogg libraries. Also I use DirectSound for Windows. All source source code of my library you can grab from svn here and try to understand how my sound subsystem works If you want, I can try to add mp3 support through libmad.

Last edited by WILL; 09-10-2010 at 10:06 PM.
Reason: Moved portion of post here to allow continuation of conversation.

Thats ok. I've dug up the Bass library, which can be compiled on linux, mac and windows, so its got the bases covered. Also its small and handles just about any file format you throw at it. But dont get me wrong, I still have an interest in any library that is cross platform, GPL and play's mp3 files. (the mp3 part there for compatibility's sake)

cheers,
code_glitch.

I once tried to change the world. But they wouldn't give me the source code. Damned evil cunning.

I'm more so for completely free options than Bass myself. Bass is great for freeware games, which any beginner would be doing, however as development gets more serious and beginners become novices, this choice in mp3 playback may scare away potential continuing usage of the game library once all the basics have been learned.

Even as beginners, us independent developers let our heads get big at the start. We all want to be able to release the next big thing and small things like shareware license fees can seem like large limitations so we will seek out newer alternatives. That's kind of what it was like in the days of DelphiX before 3D hardware acceleration was put in. Other game libraries were first spawned because of this missing feature.

In terms of help, I much appreciate the above. I've thought it over and I think I am going to go with the support ogg and wav and all formats that are GPL-Happy and include a tool to convert .mp3 and other proprietary formats. Thanks for all the help, I think I have plenty more work to do on the Audio unit until the next release.

cheers,
code_glitch

I once tried to change the world. But they wouldn't give me the source code. Damned evil cunning.